No Stone Unturned: Expanding Our Search For Milk

Milk is one of those things that has quickly risen in price over the last few months. Used to be that Meijer would have it for sale for $2 per gallon almost every week, with Kroger usually picking up the slack, to where we got it at that price probably 75% of the time.

Those days seem way in the rearview mirror.

We noticed the regular and sale prices creeping up slowly, to where $2.25 was a ‘good’ sale price, then $2.39 a week later, and $2.50 a few weeks after that.

Now, they seem to have cut the number of sales altogether, so the ‘current’ regular price of $2.99- $3.29 is there more often than not.

Since our family drinks a lot of milk (both my wife and I drink it every day plus what Little Boy Beagle consumes), this is a noticeable hit to the grocery budget.

As such, we’ve expanded our search and added ways to find the best price on milk.

The first option we’ve recently found is….free! We participate in curbside recycling, and our city is partnered with a website that rewards residents for the amount of recycling they do. One local grocery store allows you to redeem recycling points for a free gallon of milk. The store is not one that we usually go to, and is a couple of miles out of the way, but for a gallon of milk, it’s a trip worth taking.

The second option we found is drugstores. Typically, even sale prices at drugstores weren’t any better, but nowadays, rewards programs have made them worth looking into. We recently paid $2.79 per gallon at CVS, but got a $1 register reward to use on a future purchase. Even if we go back and buy it on a regular priced ($2.99) gallon, that still averages out to $2.39 per gallon. For weeks where there are no sales, this is still the best price, and considering we buy 2-3 gallons per week, the savings per month add up quickly.

Have you been getting creative to combat increased food prices? How so?–

I've had bad luck shopping around myself. It seems that 2 supermarkets and one pharmacy has what I'd call bad refrigerators and/or crappy stocking policies because I've had milk go bad before the expiration date from certain places. They must let it sit at room temp for a while before putting it away. I can only trust 3 places around here to get milk.

I'm actually starting to buy local milk that's twice the price but at least 3 times more tasty. That's my latest splurge. Local milk.

We buy all our non dairy groceries at Fresh and Easy because they have $5 off $25 and $10 off $50 coupons at the check out stand every week for the following week… so this helps us only shop at one store and come out a bit ahead. (the coupons don't go towards dairy, alcohol, or gift cards).

My work is right by a costco so every 2 weeks when I fill up for gas I run inside and pick up 2 gallons of fat free milk for $4.69.

We will use them up before they expire and since i'm already filling up there for gas it's a trip worth while.

@krantcents – That's good that you are able to hit all three stores. We have several different options but they are all placed just far enough away that we don't go unless there's a too-good-to-pass-up deal.

@First Gen – Everybody has a splurge. You're entitled!

@South County Girl – We live in the dead center point of four Costco's, so it's a once-a-month trip there.

@Ashley – See above on Costco. We have found good deals there, actually one time they had a gallon for 79 cents that was 'Best by' in two days. We got 80% the way through it so we still came out way ahead!